001Good evening. Welcome. I guess. >> Come on in. All right. So, welcome to the February 11, 2025 Indian Hill Board of Education meeting. I'll call the meeting to the order. I see some of the braves here. Would you like to come forward and lead us to pledge of Legion? >> Want to help? >> Anybody wants to help? >> The pledge of Legion. >> You can just stand there and do it, too. That's all right. You start us off to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Uh Mr. Davis, roll call, please. >> Mr. remarks. >> Mrs. Singh >> here. >> Mr. Summer >> here. >> Mr. Tullus >> here. >> Mr. Warful
002>> here. >> Can I have Okay, we need to adopt the regular meeting agenda. Can I have the first So move >> second. >> All in favor? >> I I >> I. >> All right. Mr. Davis, any public commentary today? >> We do. And um before I start it, I will just remind the uh speakers uh we have three minute time limit per speaker and there's a limit of 30 minutes if we get more speakers during the uh the puppet commentary section. So the first person I have on the list is Michelle Seaman. You could come up please. Hi. Um, there's been a lot of talk around through the parents recently about test scores coming back. We've got a lot of substitute teachers in the classrooms and we know we're coming back from COVID, but
003it's 2025. We feel like we need to make some dedicated progress towards catching our kids up. Um, I just got back our eighth grade math math scores and for two the last two in a row, our eighth grade math, we didn't even hit the median average for the state of Ohio. We're supposed to be one of the best schools in our state and we're falling behind in some key areas. And I just want to bring it to the attention. It's talked about amongst parents. We're concerned that we are losing the academic excellence that Indian Hill is known for and we want to make sure that this group of parents, our administrators, we're doing something about it. and we want to be included in the conversation of what the plan is. That's it. >> Thank you,
004Michelle. >> All right. Next on the list, I have Alexandria Williams. Good evening. My name is Alex Williams and I'm the parent of two students in the district. I'm here today to speak about the serious issue of bullying and racism within our middle and high school. Both of my children have experienced microaggressions and being called the n-word by other students. And after speaking with many other parents, I've learned that we're not the only family who have experienced this. And unfortunately, this is not a new problem. it seems to be that the school district has failed to properly address it. Um, the district's policy on bullying states that bullying, harassment, and intimidation are prohibited and will not be tolerated. Specifically, the policy defines bullying as any behavior that targets a student based on their race, color,
005national origin, or other protected classes, which include ethnicity and disability. It also outlines that all students are entitled to a safe, secure, and supportive learning environment and that appropriate disciplinary action will be taken against students who violate this policy. As of yesterday, I was informed and I also spoke with um the assistant principal today. Um that the incidents involving my children are under investigation. However, I'm still very concerned with this being an ongoing issue that there's been insufficient action taken in the past to stop these incidents from recurring. I want to see the district not just investigate, but also implement changes to address racism to ensure it stops once and for all. I urge the board to stand by its own policies. These are your policies. I didn't pull them out of my back pocket.
006I ask that the district take meaningful visible action to not only thoroughly investigate bullying and racism incidents, but also to hold the ka the students who engage in these harmful behaviors accountable. Racism is learned and anything learned can be unlearned. The board must enforce consequences for bullying and racism. It's unacceptable for my children and any student to feel unsafe and unwelcome in their own school. My children belong here just like any other child that lives in a district and they have the right to learn and grow in a safe environment. Thank you. Miss Williams, would it be possible for me to get your written copy and I can put those right in the minutes? Miss Siman, did you have written? That's okay. I'll I'll summarize. Thank you very much. That is the last person on
007the list tonight for public commentary. Thank you both for sharing your >> thoughts. We'll certainly look into both. >> Next up is recognition and correspondence and announcement. Mr. Cany lead us to that. >> Yes. Good evening everybody. Uh we're going to start off tonight with our monthly welcome home video. If you could turn your attention to the screens here. Our student ambassadors are going to lead this next piece. From the global business breakfast at Indian Hill High School to the global fair at Indian Hill Primary School, we close January with an amazing celebration of more than 40 different nationalities that comprise our district. Greetings, Braves. I'm Indian Hill CEO Superintendent Kirk Kcki, and I'm coming to you from Indian Hill Primary School. Today, I'm joined by some special student ambassadors. Guys, you look an awful
008lot alike. Are you brothers? >> Yes, but actually we're twins. >> Wow. Introduce yourselves. >> Hi, I'm Mav from Pronov. >> Wow, this is going to be an amazing day. Pranov and Mav, I know you both got to experience the global fair that was hosted at the primary school last Friday. Can you tell me your favorite part? I liked when I went to Italy and I had to find Italy on the globe with my partners and then when I found it with in 5 seconds we got to make our own pizza. >> So some geography and some pizza. That's awesome. What about you motto? >> My favorite part was going around to all the different countries and learning about all their different cultures and traditions. >> Lots of great details about all those countries. Huh.
009>> Yeah. >> Wow. Can you two help me send it over to Mr. Johnson who's waiting at Indian Hill Elementary School? >> Hey, Mr. Johnson. >> The global celebration was epic. And it wasn't the only event that happened on Friday. We have a finalist for teacher of the year. >> Welcome to elementary school. Hello, I'm Smokey and I'm in fifth grade and I'm with Mr. Hayden and Mrs. Torbeck. Gold Star Chili was just at our school. Why? >> I nominated Mrs. Torbeck, one of our best teachers as a gold star teacher of the year. Mrs. Torbeck leads our green growers go time and she's phenomenal and we need everybody to go out and vote. What we need for you to do is text Torbeck to 24454. Text tobeck at 24454. >> How does it feel
010to be a finalist? I would say it feels really exciting and a little overwhelming with all of the support I'm getting from the community and my fellow teachers and all the students. >> Make sure to vote. Let's send it to the middle school. >> Thanks, elementary school. Welcome to the middle school. I'm Alice, one of your student ambassadors. I'm here with our future city medalists. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves? >> I'm Zoe. I'm in seventh grade. >> I'm Anoop and I'm in seventh grade. And I'm Sammy and I'm also in seventh grade. So Zoe, what is Future Cities? >> Future City is a creative engineering club where students are allowed to create their city based on the prompt they gave you. >> And Sammy, what did you do at the competition? >> At the
011Future City competition, there are four main parts. First, you write an essay. Then you build a model. Then you make a presentation, and then you show it to the judges. The judges picked the best based off the last three categories. >> Anu, what did you take away from this? >> We learned how to like use teamwork and how to work together. This is like an experience I've never experienced before. and how to experience on the stage and perform in front of judges. It was really cool. >> Let's send it over to the high school. >> Go Braves. >> Thank you, middle school. I'm Marin Phelps. >> I'm Devlin Daniel. We just had our first unified leadership retreat. >> And we are so excited to send it to reporter Zev Pollock for more. >> Indian Hill
012High School hosted its first ever unified leadership retreat this week. It was a day filled with inspiration, excitement, and teamwork. Organized by our incredible unified officers, this event focused on building leadership through excited hundies and activities centered around our district 5 season, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and citizenship. Students had the best time racing through railways and now gain mazes and tackling design thinking challenges. The day wrapped up with a heartwarming service project where students collaborated to make cozy blankets for project lioness spreading warmth to those in need in the Cincinnati. This unforgettable event showcased the power of inclusive leadership and reflecting and inhal's commitment to provide opportunity for all students to grow as leaders and make meaningful contributions to our community. >> Thanks Z for the report >> and let's send it to Mr.
013Johnson. Mr. Kcki, we have two campus life events that we don't want you to miss. Mark your calendars for our K12 STEM night taking place on February 19th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at our middle school and buy your tickets now for the high school winter musical Foot Loose. The show opens on February 20th. Back to you. >> Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Prana Mada, can you help me tell our Brave family to make it a great Friday? >> Have a great Friday, Braves. So, lots going on around the district right now as you can see in our annual global week, which is a celebration of diversity and making sure that we're welcoming all of our students and uh that is something that we definitely care about and want to make sure that we're working on.
014Um, I'm going to kind of jump ahead on the agenda. I think it's a good segue to have our guests who are here to talk about our global parent organization and we want to recognize the work of that organization. Last last month we celebrated um our global cultural week and during that week of January 27th every building across our campus honored the more than 40 different nationalities that comprise our district. Our global celebration week happens each year and each of our buildings partner with our global group a parent-based group um that is supported by the Indian Hill PTO. Also, uh we have many of the members here this evening who are are members of that group. Our students K through 12 enjoyed a week-long cultural learning adventure that culminates with a big event, the global
015fair that took place uh Friday, January 31st in our primary school. And it's always such a fun event for our kids as you heard from Prof. So, at this time, I'd like to ask uh one of the leaders of the group, Monica Gibson, to maybe introduce along with our global parent leaders. And um we'd love to uh first thank you for all you do uh and also love to hear a few pieces of feedback about what's going on with the global parent organization. >> Okay. Well, I'm Monica Gibson. I'm the T- cell coordinator for the district and I have the best job because I get to work with so many international um students and families and we really have a phenomenal partnership with our global parent group. This is Claire. Um your last name is
016hard to pronounce even though I do speak French. It's so guys, CL and um Claire is phenomenal and she's been a a great partner um along with all of the other parents who continue to show up year after year to support our students. So um we want to tell you a little bit about Global Week, but also a couple of months ago we had the global dinner um which is hosted every year and so we're also going to talk about that for a second. Yeah. >> So, do you want me to >> Oh, yes. We have a button. He told me >> he tried to help me avoid this moment. >> Oh, yeah. >> So, so that's a global parents group. We are a committee right now of about 10 12 people who are really
017active and really all year long helping to organize uh you know with me all those events and you can see most of them here who participated the the global fair. Um, so Monica is going to take us through the whole global week, you know, highlights. Just wanted to say a few words about the global dinner. So the global week is definitely for our group the large celebration of the of the year and we're very happy to to partner with Monica on organizing that. The global dinner is our second largest event. Um, we are trying as a group the vision that we have is that we try to have two main pillars if you want. One is about community and getting people together, helping integrating international parents and offering opportunities every month to get together and
018the dinner is one uh one of them. And then we have the enrichment activities you know that are happening a lot during the global week. The global dinner uh this year we have just to use the size more than 200 uh participants more than 70 families. Most of them are international but it's an event that we really want to be open to the whole district. We would love to have more and more as well of the local families to participate to give a chance for them to enjoy the diversity in a different way. It's a moment when we share food and traditions. So, it's something that we aim to grow year on year. We already very happy about where it is, but it's something that we cherish and hope to share more and more. >>
019And we included a lot of student groups and it really um took things to the next level, I No, and it's a great point because as you can see this year, I mean it's happening. We actually everything was organized from within and from the clubs. So it was great to have all those students who volunteered their time, who volunteered their talents. So it was a great mix as during the whole evening. Everybody really enjoyed sharing their talents, where they come from. It was good. >> Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, so back to global week. Um, so we have a lot of integrated things in the day. So students have time in their morning meetings um and this is grades K through eight so it can be morning meetings. It's middle school advisory where they really um
020are able to have opportunities and prompts to share about their own home cultures and um really make connections and just start to think globally. And we really have things designed um for each grade level to really meet students where they're at developmentally. So that's part of it. We also have some information slides that are globally themed um for the week. So part of it is belonging like we have students who are from other cultures and countries who go to our school and recognizing that and then up through the middle school and high school it's about learning facts about the the world. So we have that the global fair um which you saw highlighted in the video is a highlight. The students love it. Um, I'm trying to think. One of the things they were most
021excited about was that they got to talk to a real person from that country or culture. And so they just and they said, "Did they come all the way here?" You know, as if they had just arrived that morning um for the fair. But it was so um their joy is just special. Um we also had students preparing at the middle school for a choir concert. Uh we had the choir concert had songs in nine different languages. Um and over 170 students participated in that as well. Okay. This year we added um the global business breakfast and Claire and I were having a conversation about what can we do more for our high school students and really meet them where they are on their journey. And so Claire said um you know Claire is a
022>> yeah so basically the idea was trying to think know what can we bring and what can we give to those high school students and we really thought through they are going to start thinking about their future right there until now they are in that school they follow a program but they're going to start making their own choices. What we wanted to do is how can we open their mind about different choices and maybe new ideas they didn't have and thinking about our unique background. We have global parents which means we all came here from different countries for different reasons and we had we have made this choice of um you know having different experiences in different countries and we all believe it's something very much enriching our private life our professional life and that's
023something we wanted to share you know you know you can think about these kind of opportunities and you need to create those opportunities for yourself and by showcasing all those different examples can give them many ideas of how it can be done. There's not one way of doing it. There is many different ways in whatever field you choose. You know, it can be um corporate, it can be doctors, it can be just I take my backpack and I go traveling three months in Europe. But it was really this idea of how can we make them think of how important it is to interact with other cultures and understand how different it is and how it will force you to become more flexible to think that there are different ways of communicating different values different cultures
024and that understanding the person in front of you will help you in the future in the future be more successful if you're interacting with other communities that just the one you grew up in. So that was a bit how we went in. That's what we tried to pass. It was our first edition. We tried to do better. We had a special speaker who came and had, you know, we had brief her a little bit on those messages. So we we started. I think the parents were so so enthusiastic. I mean to see the energy from those parents to come and and share and I'm very eager. I know there was a service here, but I think the students also >> found it very different at this time. >> Yeah. Yes. Yes. So Claire had this
025idea and I said, "Well, we have this entrepreneurship center that has and we thought that the business breakfast would be the perfect time to really merge everything that the global parent group can offer us with um things that are already happening as well." So it was uh business breakfast with a twist and it was phenomenal. Um I had a chance to just jump in and listen to some of the conversations between the business partners and the students and I have a few slides that just have some quick quotes that I overheard working with different governments and pivoting business decisions based on government policy. Something I had ne I haven't experienced that but I thought was a brilliant insight for students. Um needing to be flexible. uh you need to understand the culture of their company
026and how it works with the culture of your company. Um and they were talking about how companies had merged between a French company and Italian company and um just understanding that I think is so um brilliant for these students to start to think about. So at the end of the event, I received so many messages and texts from uh parents and they came up to me and just said there this is phenomenal there and I I wrote down this quote but there is no other school in the United States that has an opportunity like this. they just were so pleased to be a part of this um to partner with us in this way and um really offer the students something really unique that we have thanks to the depth um and the experience in
027our global parent group. So that is global week 2025. [Applause] I just want to thank you both for all the time and energy you put into it. passion is very contagious I can see and I really appreciate what you guys are doing here. It's very very cool. >> And if I could echo that this I always feel that our school one of the many reasons we are so blessed is our strong parents and this is one of my favorite groups we have. um I get to experience through the eyes of my fifth grader and second grader and they share the stories of the global fair and how much they love uh now all they want to do is go travel to Europe but you know I don't blame y'all for that but it really is
028remarkable and and lumping it with or connecting it with the entrepreneurship center this year is awesome I really hope that continues so thank you so much for everything you do >> outstanding thank you >> thank you all >> both of you I just want to say quickly so these are the two parents We have so many people who are involved throughout the year helping a district and we really appreciate all of you for coming forward and stepping into the classroom and teaching our children about different cultures. For me, the global week is very important. It's an important part of the school because it helps promotes culture awareness and diversity around us. What it helps with the students is to understand the difference perspectives, develop empathy and then appreciate their friends a little bit more. It
029also helps prepare them to be more open-minded and socially responsible individual in an interconnected world. As Mr. Latif Johnson who is a district coordinator of students life. He very well said that on his social media. Moments like these remind us of how important it is to explore, appreciate and embra and embrace the world around us. So great job both of you for organizing this and it is always nice to see you guys the enthusiasm that you have and the new ideas that you keep bringing in. So thank you. Thank you to all the global global parents. Sorry. Thank you guys. >> Thank you again. Uh we're going to go back up uh board members to the top here of our recognition for a few minutes. Just want to congratulate our brave middle school students who
030participated in future city competition. You saw that on the video again. Uh best use of recreation and best use of transportation. The team members were Karan Aota, Sammy Glassman, Anna Pagata, and Zoe Lee. Uh we want to also recognize tonight our Indian Hill High School athletes. We had another winter signing ceremony for five of our student athletes on January 22nd. Natali Kristo, Robert Hayes, Pennton, Connor Wilks, and Jason Zho, who's a world record holder in swimming. All moving on to the collegiate level as student athletes to compete. Uh we're very proud of all of those students. Also want to celebrate the 21 Indian Hill High School student artists who recently competed as a part of the regional scholastic art and writing awards competition. We had 46 outstanding art pieces that were award-winning. And in total,
031Indian Hill High School students earned 23 honorable mentions, 12 silver key awards and 11 gold key awards. want to talk a little bit for a moment tonight about the return on investment we've been getting for students with the new entrepreneur center. Uh we kind of did a by the numbers at the beginning of the school year as we got started here with some goals that the board set for the new department of leadership and career development. Thus far after half a school year 124 students have applied to be a part of experiences during this school year. That's a 31% increase in the applicants from this time last year. It's a large increase of students just at the high school level. 123 students and 49 partners attended our global week business at breakfast as you heard
032uh from our partners, the largest attendance ever. And 98 of our high school students who've had their meetings with mentor coaches and successfully completed the onboarding course at the high school and are actively seeking job shadow and internship opportunities. And I just want to give a shout out to Lauren Richardson who's working with Mr. Damado in the entrepreneurs center. If you follow any of the announcements that come out from the high school or social media about what's going on in the entrepreneur center, there is a ton of communication for individual students who are being personally recognized for their work, which we're very proud of and the business partners who are working with them and the number of partners continues to grow. So, 49 and growing. Um, and as you can imagine, that's a lot of
033communication going on. Also, we would like to celebrate our Indian Hill High School DECA team who earned 89 state qualifiers during their recent district competition. 136 Braves competed at the University of Cincinnati on January 29th and 30th and 89 are moving on. So, congratulations to our DECA students. Once again, that's a great showing. Special recognition for Indian Hill High School senior Samantha Kaine. She's been named the winner of the 2025 class of the Coca-Cola Scholars program. This is a very unique and elite scholarship program earning $20,000 in scholarships. It's one of the most prestigious competitive programs in our country. Samantha is one of only 150 students nationwide selected as a winner from more than 105,000 applicants. Uh this distinction places her among the top high school seniors in the nation, recognizing her academic excellence, her
034leadership, and dedication to community service during her time in school. So, we appreciate and want to recognize Samantha. Next up, we have with us tonight Dr. Owens, and we are going to take some time to talk about kindergarten. So, thank you for joining us, Dr. Owens. >> Yeah, thank you so much. Um, I think I'm getting queued up. Uh, I was asked to come tonight to share a little bit about what it might take to get us to all day kindergarten. share a little bit of information about the primary school and kindergarten specifically. Um, so thank you for having me here. I appreciate it. Let me see if I can figure out how to use that. Nope. Oh, there we go. So, this is just a fun fact. Um, we currently have a three quarter
035day kindergarten is what we call it. Um, it's a 71 of a point 1.0 day that our other students experience that our teachers work. Um, it's the only one I can find in the entire state. Uh, which is interesting and, uh, it's a unique program in that it offers our kids a half-day experience with lunch and specials. And, uh, and so there aren't many other districts out there doing that. And I've heard that, you know, maybe we'd like to look at what an all day program could look like. So, our team has spent a couple of years working on that. So, that's what I'm going to share with you tonight. Um first of all the Ohio Department of Education Workforce has three main requirements for kindergarten that no matter what kind of program we design
036design we have to keep these things in mind. Um it is that uh a parent can we are required to provide half day kindergarten. We are not required to provide anything different than that. So anybody that wants a half day kindergarten ODW requires us to give them a half day kindergarten. Uh districts can choose to have a full day program and they can choose to charge for it. And I'll give you some information about the districts around us and what they're doing a little bit later on. If uh a district chooses to charge for it, they must have a sliding scale based on income. And finally, all public districts can choose one of two birthday cutoff dates for kindergarten students. And that is either August 1st or September 30th. We um have used the September
03730th birthday cutoff for a long time and I will show you what our surrounding districts use. So what would it take uh for Indian Hill to have a all day kindergarten program or a full day kindergarten program? Those are interchangeable language. One another fun fact that you might need to know is that we have been tracking year-over-year the number of students that are not with us in kindergarten but are with us in first grade. And uh it ranges anywhere from in the last three years 16 to 30 new enrollments that we get in first grade. Um if we look five years it has been as high as 35 new children have come in a single year to our first grade grade program. There are of course a variety of reasons right we are going to
038get families that move in from neighboring areas but a lot of our families do choose to take advantage if their preschool has a full day kindergarten program. our families are choosing to use that sometimes. And so that's just a piece of information that kind of goes into what it might take for us because it it is year overyear we expect a jump from that kindergarten to first grade year of at least a class full of students. So there are some needs that we have um if we were to think about a full day kindergarten program and that is that we do need more classroom space. We would expect at least one more classroom, but then we um would need places for additional intervention teachers. Um a potential UA rotation because uh our kindergarteners receive less
039um you um UA than our full day students. And so that would need to be equivalent if they were here all day. So just some things to think about it. And additionally, our transportation department would need to do an entire um programmatic look at how they get children home when we're talking about another 160 to 180 students. So uh as I had mentioned there have been a team of primary school staff and myself that have been working on what's the research behind all day kindergarten and um you know everything looking from what what does academic research tell us is are the gains or not um to what do other places in the state offer and what is in a world-class kindergarten program. Um, so we've done everything from survey other districts around us to call
040up people that work in um, districts across the state to reading academic research papers. And so you'll see some of the information that we have been working on contained a little later in the slide. But there is one thing if I think about a timeline and uh that comes from experience working in another district and actually implementing going taking their kindergarten program from half day to full day and this was a very large district worked with over 50 kindergarten teachers who were formerly half-day kindergarten teachers and became full day kindergarten teachers. there was a lot of work that went into them being prepared to teach differently um and teach in a in and change everything that they've done. So, you know, if you take a 20 year half-day kindergarten teacher and you say, "Okay, next
041year you're going to be a full day kindergarten teacher or next year," there's a lot of work that goes into helping them transition. So, if this were something that Indian Hill ever moved forward on, I do believe we would need about a year of planning to go into not only facilities, not only transportation, not only purchasing of materials, but getting our staff ready for a change in practice. Um, and and then through, you know, kind of thinking through this timeline, we could potentially have an opening of a full day kindergarten one day. So these are some main considerations that our research team came up with um as we thought about what are the possibilities and there is a cost associated with moving from a threequarter day to a full day. Um the primary school does
042not have space for these anticipated four rooms. We have no classroom space um at this time and currently use our multi-purpose room as a classroom. So uh you know that would be something that we would have to wrestle with as a group. Um we must continue to follow the requirements that are put forth for us. So that would always be part of our planning. Um and we've begun enrolling for next year. So currently our enrollment period begins in January. And so we'd want to be thinking always at least a year ahead from January. >> And what's the KGS? >> Oh, great. So KGS or our kindergarten enrichment program. Um, currently they are on site and they offer for our kindergarten families uh an enrichment program that when their day is done at 1:45, they can
043stay with KGS until 3:30 and then ride the 3:30 bus home. over 50% of our existing kindergarten families take advantage of that. It's a lot of kindergarteners in an enrichment program um in a small space. So to me, this speaks to the desire of our families to have them in school all day. Uh currently, if we were taking just that fact that we have right now, um over 50% of our families engage in that. That is also through KGS. Yeah. >> Beyond 3:30 >> Yeah. I don't know. I do know that the number of students that stay beyond the 3:30 time is much less than the number of students that stay for the kindergarten, but I I don't know the exact number. >> If I could introdu just interrupt for one second, I think it's
044a great question and um uh in subsequent months, we will have a presentation on preschool and pre-post programming and we've got uh our team with Mr. Nichols and Miss Leopard are researching that now. >> Thank you. Okay, so this slide really details getting down uh to the dollar amount. Um so there are some savings obviously the elimination of a bus route but lots of savings to parents. This number is a calculated cost for 10 month 10 months of that intervent or that enrichment care. Um, but when we're looking at, you know, staffing and materials and things, there are some ongoing costs that would be associated with the movement of the increase of a program. These are all estimates. >> Um, these are annual estimates. Um, obviously this estimate right here of a modular that's just
045would yeah, totally temporary. would that need to be the way that we went about it? But I did want to ask the question like how much are one of those things? Didn't realize they were so expensive to rent for a year. Um so this is part part of the work that the team did was to look at what's going on around us and um OD formerly what was OD in 2022 they did um a survey more than a third of the districts in Ohio we have approximately 600 districts more than a third participated in the survey and of those third of the districts participating in the survey you can see that 97% of them offered a full day program in some form. This 12% meant that they had full day and half day going on.
046So that felt surprising to me, felt like more than I anticipated, but again, it was only approximately a little over a third of the districts answering. So, uh, locally or in the southwest Ohio area. So, I didn't just look at our neighbors, but the whole southwest Ohio area, Butler, um, Hamilton, Warren counties, if they offered a full day, were they charging for it? And you could see that a little more than half of the districts were charging for it if they offered a full day. Um, so this is our most uh local neighbors and what's going on with them. So you can see that uh almost everybody by us offers a full day and many of them have a tuitionbased full day. We also talked about what date of cutoff they're using and then this
047so when the team started talking about this a couple years ago you could see everybody was September 30th. So this year I went back went to check my numbers and lo and behold these uh three districts have for next year changed their entrance cutoff date. I thought that was interesting data. I don't know that that you know it's just something to noodle about. Um the other piece of data before we get into questions was uh I talked about that the team dug into the research around what are the benefits for kids around a full day program. Um most research indicates that there are academic benefits immediately seen but that those diminish by third grade. And so to me that means we're going to see a little bit of change in how the their first grade
048readiness um their you know second grade outcomes but by third grade we would expect them to be performing to the level that they perform in third grade. Um and I do have references on that research if you need it. >> Dr. about how much extra time per day would we have for the the children if we were to go to this? >> It's about another 90 minutes. >> 90 minutes. Thank you. I >> I know at some point we'll more formally engage the community, but if you had any I mean if you had to do a you know gut reaction as to what our families want, what would you think the reaction would be? >> Everyone that I have spoken with is excited about the opportunity for a full day. Um no one has said
049to me I would rather have a half day. However, in my experience in another district with a sim, you know, initiating a similar program, there were people who said, you know, I stay at home. This is my last baby. I think I want to have a little more time. I, you know, but it doesn't seem to be the prevalent messaging. >> They do then half day, and maybe this is we're not yet there to answer this question. Do those students would they all be together or would they be together with the rest of the class? ask the full-time kids to just leave at lunch or >> yeah, >> how do you from a staffing perspective? That would be my question. If you only have four kids who do a half day kindergarten, do you need
050a class just for those four children? >> And I don't think that that I I don't because we're small. I don't think that that would be a sustainable model. And additionally, it would require more space. >> The the key to that question that you're asking is if you have any other model, you have to offer full day. So any number of students who want half day would have to have supervision, >> right? And that's >> to have a teacher. >> We have to Could those metriculate into the full day classes or do they need their own class to compress? >> There's no rule around that. So I do think that we could be creative with what that could look like. >> Well, and I I saw you said 58% roughly give or take again I'm
051ballparking off the slide. We're charging a tuition. What is your average tuition if that is something that a district is >> I don't know the answer to that. um did not ask other districts what they're charging, but that could be part of ongoing uh to I will say from my experience in my previous district, it was based on the cost to the district and at that time it was about 375 a family um per month and that was in their initial trial and two years later they were not charging at all. So, um, it was a way for them to offset the upstart of the program. So, uh, that would be worth investigating. >> Can we go back to the cost piece >> for the teachers just to try and get an idea of what
052that is annually? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, this was uh and this was estimating eight staff. Um, this would be the increase approximately to the district. um assuming you know what else is wrapped into salaries, benefits and things like that. >> Thank you. >> Dr. this uh eight staff >> so the current staff you you have the half the kindergarten. So how many uh staff members do you have there? >> We have currently eight kindergarten teachers. >> Okay. >> Um >> and how many just roughly how many students we have in kindergarten right now? Um, I think we're at 158 currently. Um, which right now our class sizes uh are larger than normal. We've had a quite a large influx of kindergarteners during the school year. It's we've had an unusual amount of move
053in 2K mid year. >> Do you have any sense of what our current kindergarten teachers feel about a potential move to all day? I'd hate to do that than lose eight kindergarten, >> right? Uh it's just been side conversations at this point and I think uh our current staff feels open to the possibilities. >> U board members, also as a reminder, uh we'll continue to provide you with information about the pre-post care and preschool models uh at a future board meeting and want to thank Dr. Owens for all the detail that her and her team have put behind this research. Uh we've had several presentations also about this with our admin team. Um want to also remind you that when we did the public opinion study in the summer, uh over 76% of our parents
054said these were services they wanted us to research and that they were interested in. So that's one of the reasons of course that the board charged us with this work. And I want to appreciate um Dr. Owens and her time tonight. So thank you very much for this information. is very important. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Yeah. Thank you, Dr. That was a great presentation. Uh with that, can we move to the superintendent report? Mr. Kenny. >> Yes. Thank you, uh President Singh. So, um tonight, uh board members, we have some uh approvals uh including under 7A an annual membership renewal for the Ohio High School Athletic Association that we do every year at this time. several overnight field trips. Um, a letter C are a couple of exciting new high school course proposals
055for next year that go along with our current uh plan to expand our computer science program as well as our unified programs. uh we have a agreement that is anou that we look at annually for uh higher ed partners under letter D with uh Sinclair Community College and under letter E items 1 through 7B are um personnel approvals uh for supplemental contracts we have several retirements who will celebrate later in the spring um as well as some um tuition reimbursements. Uh if there are no questions, I would ask the board to entertain 7 A through E7B at this time. >> Can I have a motion to accept >> super report? >> I'll go ahead and make a motion to accept 7A through E7B. >> Second. >> Mr. Summer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Warel. >> Yes.
056>> Mr. Tullis. >> Yes. >> Mr. Singh. Yes. >> With that, can we move >> with that? Can we move on to the treasur report, Mr. Davis? >> Certainly. >> Uh, item A is to approve the minutes of the January 14th, 2025 organizational regular meeting. Item B is to approve the financial reports for the month ending January 31st, 2025. Uh item C is a resolution raising the capitalization threshold of fixed asset from 5,000 to 10,000 retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year. Item D is to approve the establishment of three student activity tournament accounts. Item E is to approve the Indian Hill facility rental rates. Item F is an unusual one for me. I actually have a retirement and uh that's our payroll supervisor, Beth Codell. um I'm going to lose a tremendous asset
057to the district and uh Mr. Nichols and I are already beginning the uh search to replace her. Um I'm not sure how many people understand how important a payroll supervisor is to any business. Um when people's paychecks aren't correct, that creates a lot of uh discontent. So, um, that's a very important position and I look, uh, forward to, uh, trying to fill Beth's shoes with Beth's help and, uh, we'll get that replaced here soon. Item G, item G is a change of appropriations. Uh, there's seven items under there. Um, item 35 is the severance account, which we had some early retirements. Um, and then two through seven are grant funds that we had out reallocations that changed the amount that we were given. And then item H is an acceptance of donations. Eight it seven
058items by the foundation. Um item eight is a a donation by the boosters. Uh we're always very excited and very pleased when our partner groups are able to uh give us the opportunity to present uh funding for other programs outside of the daily academics. >> So if there could I just interrupt for a moment? >> Certainly. >> Just want to again thank our partners at the foundation. You can see this list here and how many different areas their generosity is helping with our academic programming um going back throughout this school year. There's a wide range of uh programming there. And also our boosters um want to give them a shout out. Our PTO and our boosters have both put on amazing fundraisers in the last two months and there's a lot of work that goes
059behind those things and all of that fundraising they do supports our programming as well. You see that again here with the boosters tonight. So, I want to thank our partners. >> Are there any other questions from the board? >> No. Can I have the motion to accept the treasur report? >> I'll make a motion to approve the treasures report item 8A through H8. >> Second. >> Mr. Davo. >> Mr. Tullus. >> Yes. >> Mr. Warfl. >> Yes. >> Mr. Summer. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Singh. Yes. >> Thank you. >> So again say I just want to say thank you to the foundation and the boosters and the preview for all the work that they do. It's without their support I think there are a lot of things that we won't be able to do it.
060So you know we really appreciate our partners and with that is there any other business by board or administration? >> Uh Miss Singh I do have an uh a late item I'd like to add uh tonight. asked the board to do a approval of an overnight field trip request that we got late that was not on the agenda from our mock trial team and Mr. Van Odin Allen uh so that they may attend uh their state tournament in early March. Uh we just got that news and would ask the board to entertain the resolution to approve that overnight field trip request >> only if they commit to winning. >> Always. Okay. With that, I'll make a motion to approve the mocktrial team's journey to Columbus. Second. Mr. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Is there
061anything else? >> No. So at this time I would like to to adjourn the meeting. Can I get a motion to adjourn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? Hi. >> Hi. >> I just want to say some of the parents who are here, we appreciate you guys coming over. I know it's not a perfect day to come attend the board meetings, but we appreciate you all coming here. So, thank you for coming and talking to us. Good night. Thank you. >> Thank you. Exclusive coverage on the Indian Hill Television Network has been a copyrighted presentation of the Indian Hill High School video department. things.